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Remember, greninja is frail. Like, wood takes better hits. Protean is used for greninjas survivability, a trait that if it lacked, it would be a mere mixed delphox water clone-ish.... you get the point.

Remember, greninja is frail. Like, wood takes better hits. Protean is used for greninjas survivability, a trait that if it lacked, it would be a mere mixed delphox water clone-ish.... you get the point.

While Protean does help in Greninja's survivability, letting it survive more than on hit, protean's main use is to enhance its offensive capabilities. Think about it, you get STAB on any move you use! Moves like ice beam hit 1.5 times as hard as they do on non-protean sets.

It beats me why people are using weird hidden powers just to get a defensive type when Greninja has horrible defensive stats. Seriously, why waste a moveslot on a base 60 move with poor offensive use? Shadow sneak is also a risky move to use, since it has low base power and it's only real use is to turn into a ghost type, and there's a good chance the fighting type user would think you would switch and use a move other than Mach punch/fighting moves.

Leftovers isn't going to come of much use either, and the same for choice items, since they prevent Greninja from using Protean to it's full potential. Some people even suggested weakness policy lol.

First of all, I'm surprised that you said that Porygon-Z can KO a specially defensive Blissey with Hyper Beam prior to this. Choice Specs Modest Adaptability Hyper Beam barely 2HKOes after Leftovers, giving it plenty of time to Softboiled.

Well that is the reason why it was mainly used on 4th gen and 5th gen. as a last mean to OHKO Blissey, but not the case for Chanssey if it have Evolite .

Originally Posted by YagamiNoir4896

Moving on, I doubt any of us (other than the one that mentioned Assault Vest) have denied that Greninja is frail. What Greninja can do, however, is to abuse it's moves to gain and remove weaknesses and resistances, and even immunities. For examples, you're using a Choice Band Breloom VS a Greninja. If Greninja uses Shadow Sneak, Greninja will get an immunity to Mach Punch, gaining a significant advantage. As of your fascination with Hydro Cannon, I find it to be very, very, very situational. I agree, the best moment to use it is when your opponent is down to his last. But then again, why waste such a valuable moveslot for just one move that risks possibly your entire team that can only be effectively used at one moment? The recharge turn is very exploitable. You foe can set up a Sub, Swords Dance, or whatever the hell it wants, depending on what is appropriate, before significantly damaging, if not sweeping, your team.

For one thing of course its situational , and should only be used if it only have Torrent cause unfortunately the Ability Capsule doesnt change the ability permanently and furthermore it doesnt change it to the hidden ability , if it was the case then of course hydro cannon would get the shaft.

Originally Posted by YagamiNoir4896

Also, OP means overpowered. Shadow Tag is an extremely overpowered ability. It turned something so mediocre in Gothitelle to BL. Bring something monstrously powerful such as Chandelure with it, and as long as it switches in carefully, it's a confirmed KO on many things. It's also one of the reasons why sand teams and Dugtrio become much more common.

Unfortunately Chandelure is also BL too since its very frail and shadow tag wouldnt change it. just put in something that abuses pursuit and it'll do down after spikes/stealth rocks damage. it may be powerful , but its in the same boat as Rampardos when it comes to what tiers it belongs. However giving it shadow tag in 5th gen is the main reason people used it. now that the big N have given it the god awful infiltrator , dont be surprised that its uses fall drastically.

Modest Choice Specs Porygon-Z cannot even OHKO physically defensive Blissey with a layer of Spikes and Stealth Rock. It was never able to OHKO specially defensive Blissey.

For one thing of course its situational , and should only be used if it only have Torrent cause unfortunately the Ability Capsule doesnt change the ability permanently and furthermore it doesnt change it to the hidden ability , if it was the case then of course hydro cannon would get the shaft.

Even with Torrent, Hydro Cannon should still be dropped. In a game where every turn matters, deliberately giving your opponent a free turn is a terrible idea. The only way you don't is if you are positive that Greninja will die right after using Hydro Cannon, and that's a big gamble. You'd be far better off running another coverage move or U-turn or something than a super situational move that can give your opponent a free turn to do whatever they want if you don't lose Greninja or win the game immediately after.

Unfortunately Chandelure is also BL too since its very frail and shadow tag wouldnt change it. just put in something that abuses pursuit and it'll do down after spikes/stealth rocks damage. it may be powerful , but its in the same boat as Rampardos when it comes to what tiers it belongs. However giving it shadow tag in 5th gen is the main reason people used it. now that the big N have given it the god awful infiltrator , dont be surprised that its uses fall drastically.

What? Chandelure with Shadow Tag would have been an easy Uber, possibly even a quickban. Seriously, even Gothitelle with is pretty low base 95 SpA stat, slow base 65 Spe stat, and bad typing became broken in UU and pretty good in OU just because of Shadow Tag. Chandelure, on the other hand, has an insane base 145 SpA stat (tied with Thundurus-T for the highest of anything allowed in the standard metagame), as well as a pretty solid movepool. It also has a much better base 80 Spe stat, which lets it run a Modest nature and still outspeed every unboosted Pokemon in OU bar Jolteon. Its defensive typing is also significantly better than Gothitelle's. Chandelure's frailty and ability to be Pursuit trapped is honestly irrelevant since it still comes in on whatever it wants and removes it from the game, and there's nothing you can do about it. If your Ferrothorn is the only thing on your team that can handle my DD Dragonite, then I can just bring Chandelure in and remove it with Fire Blast. Who cares if you bring Tyranitar in and kill Chandelure with Pursuit? My Chandelure already did its job and you were helpless to stop it, and now my Dragonite sweeps you cleanly because Chandelure mindlessly removed your counter.

Also, Shadow Tag was never the reason people used Chandelure because Shadow Tag Chandelure was never released.

Also, Shadow Tag was never the reason people used Chandelure because Shadow Tag Chandelure was never released.

People used it in Dreamworld OU on Pokemon Online, to test out strategies before it was released. Because it got usage on a simulator, we know exactly how useful Chandelure was, which is, only situational.

People used it in Dreamworld OU on Pokemon Online, to test out strategies before it was released. Because it got usage on a simulator, we know exactly how useful Chandelure was, which is, only situational.

Yes, it existed in PO's Dream World OU, which it was eventually banned from. Smogon had a DW metagame where it was not banned, and I played it a lot. That's where I found out just how messed up Chandelure really was, but the discussion was never about the Dream World metagame.

Also, Shadow Tag Chandelure was never situational. It was #1/#2 in usage for a very long time in DW OU for a reason. Being able to trap and guarantee a kill on anything you can KO (which is a lot when you have a base 145 SpA stat and a pretty solid movepool) is a phenomenal form of support for sweepers, and some sets such as SubCM could completely 6-0 teams if it found something it could set up on, and it did all that completely effortlessly. Heck, one of the biggest reasons that Tyranitar was used so much as a Sand starter instead of Hippowdon is simply because it could limit Chandelure to just one kill, but even then it might be too late. Tyranitar's Pursuit trapping ability was one of the big reasons behind Landorus-I's ban and Keldeo's second suspect test, so you can imagine that being able to trap literally anything you want is far more powerful.

Unless you mean that using experience from the Dream World OU ladders is situational, in which case I agree.

: spikes allows you to set up hazards and surprise anything that comes at you with an electric type move (doesn't work so well for grass). u-turn for obvious reasons, water shuriken counters a talonflame who's adamant and not fully invested in speed pretty well, and it can break through substitutes. but it's not all that powerful so don't expect to sweep with it.

Also, Shadow Tag Chandelure was never situational. It was #1/#2 in usage for a very long time in DW OU for a reason. Being able to trap and guarantee a kill on anything you can KO (which is a lot when you have a base 145 SpA stat and a pretty solid movepool) is a phenomenal form of support for sweepers, and some sets such as SubCM could completely 6-0 teams if it found something it could set up on, and it did all that completely effortlessly.

In This set Taunt REALLY helps. Like, as long as you can manipulate protean to your advantage. This set will show you protean to a great advantage. Scald, burns, the drill. Taunt, sub/protect/status prevention (lum still trollish), Shadow sneak your main protean staller, especially with mega gengar and kangaskan.
The third slot is up to you. Spikes are pretty, cus hazards are kewl, but U-turn is for the sticky spots, while Toxic/Protect are for stalling.

Just some suggestions, For a physical Greninja you would probably prefer Adamant, Greninja is fast as balls already so there's no real need to be running jolly.
Water Shuriken and Focus Sash are situational on greninja so generally Waterfall and LO are better.

Originally Posted by ajgrocks100

Remember, greninja is frail. Like, wood takes better hits.

Literally Trevenant has higher base defenses than Greninja rofl.
The only time you would want to run a move to abuse Protean defensively btw would be setting up Spikes on a predicted tbolt or volt switch or something to get a free layer up.

Yes, it existed in PO's Dream World OU, which it was eventually banned from. Smogon had a DW metagame where it was not banned, and I played it a lot. That's where I found out just how messed up Chandelure really was, but the discussion was never about the Dream World metagame.

Also, Shadow Tag Chandelure was never situational. It was #1/#2 in usage for a very long time in DW OU for a reason. Being able to trap and guarantee a kill on anything you can KO (which is a lot when you have a base 145 SpA stat and a pretty solid movepool) is a phenomenal form of support for sweepers, and some sets such as SubCM could completely 6-0 teams if it found something it could set up on, and it did all that completely effortlessly. Heck, one of the biggest reasons that Tyranitar was used so much as a Sand starter instead of Hippowdon is simply because it could limit Chandelure to just one kill, but even then it might be too late. Tyranitar's Pursuit trapping ability was one of the big reasons behind Landorus-I's ban and Keldeo's second suspect test, so you can imagine that being able to trap literally anything you want is far more powerful.

Unless you mean that using experience from the Dream World OU ladders is situational, in which case I agree.

And it ( Shadow Tag Chandelure ) was one of the most looked forward too hidden abilities to be released. unfortunately changing it to infiltrator will seriously hamper it.

Its similar to Greninja's hidden ability , the only difference is that Protean doesn't suck unlike infiltrator. unfortunately its better off on a defensive Pokemon or those that have 4x weaknesses. Don't get me wrong , the ability on greninja is wonderful on an offensive set, but its way too frail to be used for very long. Especially if the opponent can predict the ability which is all the time since torrent is mediocre and is only good for Neverused and Rarelyused suicide sets cause just like Serperior , without its hidden ability that is where it would belong.

Water Shuirken has priority, hits multipule times, and has a beast animation.
Waterfall doesn't

and Lol, Rofl

Water Shuriken has really unreliable damage and Greninja is so fast anyway that it outspeeds most everything. If you really want a Talonflame counter pick up a Rotom-W. Also even at max damage Shuriken is only 75 BP.
Also waterfalls animation is top notch son

but lets not forget , its very frail. sure not rampardos frail , but its not gonna survive much hits even with protean . Mostly it would be in the BL ( Borderline ) tier since its ability clearly makes it too powerful for UU , and only its torrent version is UU ( Underused ) which in a way makes its hydro cannon set sort of useful. especially if your opponent is the last one.

Half the time, or probably more, Hydro Cannon will just be a wasteful. If proteon Greninja is OU or BL, then torrent Greninja will be as well-that's why Blaziken with blaze was banned form OU. And since they'll be same tier, Greninja will be far better off running four moves of different types+proteon.

In the case that Hydro Cannon would be needed to do just the right amount of damage to KO the last pokemon or else you'd lose...that is extremely situational. It could possibly happen, but it's not likely enough to justify the waste of a moveslot. And again, Hydro Cannon leaves a huge opening for your opponent to come in and do whatever they feel like.

OP stands for overpowered. With the nerfs to weather and offense, it seems to me that Gamefreak is starting to pay some attention to the competitive metagame, and with that, they realized how overpowered shadow tag can be. It's what made Wobbuffet OP in gen 4, and it seemed that Chandelure was going to be overpowered with it when it got released as well.

And it ( Shadow Tag Chandelure ) was one of the most looked forward too hidden abilities to be released. unfortunately changing it to infiltrator will seriously hamper it.

Actually, it's probably more like Blaziken's speed boost in gen 5. The ability is so good, it'd send it straight to Ubers.

Infilntrator is actually it's saving grace keeping it out of the ban list.

Originally Posted by halodeoxys

Water Shuriken has really unreliable damage and Greninja is so fast anyway that it outspeeds most everything. If you really want a Talonflame counter pick up a Rotom-W. Also even at max damage Shuriken is only 75 BP.
Also waterfalls animation is top notch son

At minimum, it's at 30. Though, I suppose you could, for the sake of revenge killing, consider it a base 45 power attack with 80% accuracy, just a bit weaker than other priority moves.

It may not be Greninja's best move, but I think it might be able to pull it off. Probably something for the other options section if your team has problems with Volcarona or something.

Originally Posted by Xer-arrowtotheknee-us

How about trying Greninja with Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Haze and an attacking move?

I don't think there is a point continuing the argument about the usefulness of Hydro Cannon. We are entitled to our own opinions, but the only way we can confirm whether or not it is useful is by letting Serebii decide. They will post the Greninja sets in a few days and then we can consider opinions from there on forth.

Water Shuriken on the other hand, in my opinion is only useful when fighting Pokemon with priority moves. If you are brought down to low health or 1 HP through the Focus Sash, seeing as Greninja is probably faster, it would be beneficial to get at least some damage in before dying off (that damage might break the foe's Focus Sash or Sturdy).

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Although Water Shuriken's power may seem underwhelming, it is one of the only priority moves that can receive various boosts as well; While most priority abusers, such as Scizor and Hitmontop, complement this with STAB and Technician, Greninja has a few boosts to add to it; obligatory STAB, Rain, and Torrent. As previously mentioned in my mixed Greninja set,Water Shuriken's power range becomes 67-160 with STAB and Torrent or Rain, or 100-240 with all three boosts factored. This is more poweful than Torrent Feraligatr's Aqua Jet in the Rain, which although has a fixed 135 base power with all boosts factored, is still quite small compared to Greninja's range.

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Although Water Shuriken's power may seem underwhelming, it is one of the only priority moves that can receive various boosts as well; While most priority abusers, such as Scizor and Hitmontop, complement this with STAB and Technician, Greninja has a few boosts to add to it; obligatory STAB, Rain, and Torrent. As previously mentioned in my mixed Greninja set,Water Shuriken's power range becomes 67-160 with STAB and Torrent or Rain, or 100-240 with all three boosts factored. This is more poweful than Torrent Feraligatr's Aqua Jet in the Rain, which although has a fixed 135 base power with all boosts factored, is still quite small compared to Greninja's range.

There's no reason to factor in Torrent because Torrent Greninja won't be used. Protean is the reason it's as good as it is, guaranteeing STAB on everything and switching its defensive typing to make it slightly more difficult to check. Not to mention that to be in Torrent's range means it'll probably die quickly after. In addition, with Weather's nerf it won't be quite as prevalent this generation as it was last, so it's not necessarily a given as it would have been in Gen 5.

In other words Water Shuriken is still unreliable at best. It could be situationally useful but those situations are a bit too specific and relatively scarce to the point where it's usually better to run more reliable options.

And for the record, most Feraligatr run Swords Dance with Aqua Jet, which would still outdamage Greninja. And if you're going to say "But that needs a turn to set up", well, so does rain.

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There's no reason to factor in Torrent because Torrent Greninja won't be used. Protean is the reason it's as good as it is, guaranteeing STAB on everything and switching its defensive typing to make it slightly more difficult to check. Not to mention that to be in Torrent's range means it'll probably die quickly after. In addition, with Weather's nerf it won't be quite as prevalent this generation as it was last, so it's not necessarily a given as it would have been in Gen 5.

In other words Water Shuriken is still unreliable at best. It could be situationally useful but those situations are a bit too specific and relatively scarce to the point where it's usually better to run more reliable options.

And for the record, most Feraligatr run Swords Dance with Aqua Jet, which would still outdamage Greninja. And if you're going to say "But that needs a turn to set up", well, so does rain.

Again, it's simply an option, albeit a sightly inferior one, to Greninja's already versatile movepool. Greninja without priority struggles against one: Priority users, and two : Choice Scarfers. Seeing that Protean will always be used as you said, the only chance Greninja has against most of them are hoping that it's priority atttacks change it into a resisted attack, which even then would do significant damage due to it's high fraility. And what priority attacks does it have? Unless I'm missing something, there are only five; Shadow Sneak for Ghost, Water Shuriken, Mat Block, Quick Attack and Protect. "It resists Bullet Punch, Aqua Jet, Sucker Punch, Shadow Sneak and Water Shuriken!" Protean makes this irrelevant by not mantaining a fixed type. Protean is very good, but it isn't extremely hard to exploit either. Even with incredibly high speed and eternal STAB, Greninja is hampered by it's ability to be vulnerable to new types of moves as it acts, despite the fact that it will lose former weaknesses as well.

As for Choice Scarf users, anything ranging from Choice Scarf Tyranitar to anything else faster will outspeed it. Greninja's Speed is good, don't get me wrong; but it isn't as self sufficient as things like base 130s, that can outspeed further things like Choice Scarf base 70s. This stops U-turn, arguably one of Greninja's best assets with STAB, a non- hazard weak typing (similar to Scizor) and momentum gain.

To bring out my point in a whole, Water Shuriken covers these two things, so it isn't precisely an unreliable option.

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Torrent should just be out of question rofl. Protean is what makes Greninja so versatile torrent never stacks up to it ever.

Originally Posted by Xer-arrowtotheknee-us

I don't think they've released a Shadow Tag Litwick.

How about trying Greninja with Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Haze and an attacking move?

Not a bad idea but Tentacruel outclasses it with better defensive play minus Spikes. Also haze on Greninja is bad since its so frail and leaves it open for the opponent to attack, you're better off running another attacking move.
And no shadow tag litwick never happened, I guess GF noticed that it was pretty OP lol. Infiltrator is still decent though with the buff it got.